Saturday’s Blow-Out

We seem to have been pulling out the wrong lessons and ignoring the warnings and signals that came from Saturday’s ‘Blow-Out’ as I care to call it. The focus has been on who caused it or should have stopped it. I am one of those who feel that our Prime Minister should not have attended Lynch’s funeral or if he felt compelled by some inner force to do so, should not have spoken but should have excused himself regardless of whether or not he was actually invited to do so by the family.{{more}} I say so given his relationship with Lynch as was evident by the way he berated him when Lynch apparently was willing to provide him with an apology. This I believe was what stoked the anger in the church.

There was no doubt that something was going to happen. Whether or not the Prime Minister should attend and speak had been widely discussed before Saturday. He must have known that something was coming and had even stated that he was not sure about his attendance since he did not want to detract from the ceremony or something to that effect. Then what seemed to have aggravated matters further was the timing and manner of his entry into the church. I am of the view that if he had gone into the church even five minutes before the scheduled start, peoples’ response would not have been as vociferous and infuriating as it turned out to be. The fact that he was not listed on the programme distributed led some persons to believe that he had given further thought to the matter of his attendance and had opted not to go. But when he turned up just behind the cortège it was too much for some persons to take. The moment the issue of the PM’s tribute was settled in the manner forced on it, the tension in the room seemed to have been broken. What we saw exhibited there was built-up anger and no one could have stopped it. It had to play itself out. In those situations no one is listening so appeals for order fell on deaf ears.

Having said all of that I come to the main point I want to make. People in this country are on edge and it doesn’t take much to cause a ‘blow-out’. Some have reached the breaking point, a difficult situation in any country. We often complain about how passive Vincentians are. I am of that view, too, but with the proviso that despite their incredible patience when they think that they have had enough they would act. Vincentians, even though they might not be regular church goers have respect for the church. They might condemn it for not playing the kind of role they feel it should but yet believe that it is a body that has a central role to play in society. People attending the funeral on Saturday were angered and reacted. They would have done so wherever they were. They had one objective and were prepared to react until that objective was met.

This is what we need to focus on, the fact that people are angry and on tenterhooks. Something has to be done to contain and to release the valve that is preventing the gradual release of what has been bottling up. The danger here is that there might be no turning back. Persons at the church in Georgetown on Saturday made a statement. They were not a bunch of hooligans but people driven into a situation where they felt that they had to react. It is not good to see our country with all this heat. Things will have to change over the next months to ensure that it will not explode. It is our duty as citizens to ensure that we calm things down especially since we are into the election season. This, however, is easier said than done because the question that always emerges is what can be or should be done and by whom?

Wanted is an intervention outside of the political arena but, again, in our society, this comes down to the church. In a sense there is irony in the fact that the ‘blow-out’ was played out in the church. It was as though subconsciously persons felt that the church had divorced itself from their pain and anguish and were saying ‘if you stay away from helping to calm the rage and anxiety boiling within us, then it might be time to come to you to ensure that you can no longer isolate yourself from our pains’. The church is an important institution in our society. It has to look beyond its membership and touch society as a whole. Is there an historical context that can drive it? I came across an interesting piece from the desk of the Dean of St George’s Cathedral. It was included in its bulletin/programme for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost; “This is a call for reconstruction, decolonization and a mental rebirth…Therefore, let us become more fully aware of our context. For it is within our Caribbean history and context that we must seek to learn what God is saying to us …” Saturday’s ‘blow- out’ is about the pain, anger and loss of hope for a people on that road we took since independence, having not made a determination about where we were going and how we intended to use that new pathway that made itself available. Our reaction exposes the hypocrisy in our society where we are prepared to speak out only when it touches us politically or otherwise. Had this taken place at a different venue what would have been our reaction?

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.